Elements of Folk Psychology: Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of MankindWundt, Wilhelm Max
Science
Elements of Folk Psychology: Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
Wundt, Wilhelm Max
Ethnopsychology
Malayo-Polynesian race. This accounts for the fact that this Oceanic
group of peoples includes a great many forms of culture, which are
not, however, susceptible of any sharp demarcation. The culture of
the Negritos and the Papuans, on the one hand, is as primitive as is
that of the Australians--indeed, isolated fragments of perished races
were even more primitive than are the Australians; on the other hand,
however, some of the Malayo-Polynesian peoples are already decidedly in
advance of any other people whose culture falls within the totemic age.
The chief ethnological problem relating to these groups of peoples
concerns the origin of the Malays, who, without doubt, have given the
greatest impetus to the cultural development of these mixed races.
This problem is as yet unsolved, and is perhaps insolvable. The Malay
type, however, particularly on its physical side, points to Eastern
Asia. The resemblance to the Mongolians as regards eyes, skull,
and colour of skin is unmistakable. At the same time, however, the
original Malays probably everywhere mixed with the native inhabitants,
remnants of whom have survived in certain places, particularly in
the inaccessible forest regions of the Malayan archipelago. Now, the
Malays were obviously, even in very early times, a migratory people.
Their wanderings, in fact, were far more extensive than any other
folk-migrations with which we are familiar in the history of Occidental
peoples. Starting, as we may suppose, in Central Asia, that great
cradle of the human race, they spread to the coasts, particularly
to Indo-China, and then to the large islands of Sunda, Sumatra, and
Borneo, to Malacca, and, farther, over the entire region of Oceania.
Here, by mixture with the native population, they gave rise to a new
race, the Polynesians proper. But the Polynesian portion of the race
also preserved the migratory impulse. Thus, the Malayans were the
first to create a perfected form of boat, and to it the Polynesians
added many new features. Thenceforth the Malay was not restricted to
dangerous coast voyages, as was the case with the use of such boats as
those of the Australians or the Papuans of New Guinea. It was a boat
of increased size, equipped with sails and oars and often artistically
fitted out, in which the Malay traversed the seas. With the aid of
these boats--which were, at best, small and inadequate for a voyage
on the open sea--and at a time when the compass was as yet unheard of
and only the starry heavens could give approximate guidance to their
course, the Malays and Polynesians traversed distances extending from
the Philippines to New Zealand. Of course, these expeditions advanced
only stage by stage, from island to island. This is shown by the
legends of the Maoris of New Zealand, who were clearly the first of the
Polynesians to migrate, and who therefore remained freest from mixture
with strange races. The same fact is attested by the great changes in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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